The
sky is a vast and unique laboratory of science, always in
operation, accessible at all times from everybody from everywhere,
where all sorts of interesting physical phenomena take place
most of which is impossible to reproduce in any scientific
laboratory. The observation of the sky always fascinated the
mankind and motivated the studies of the nature and the physical
laws.

The
aim of the Teaching Science with a Robotic Telescope (EUDOXOS)
project is to utilize the 'Andreas Michalitsianos' (AM)
telescope, a 60cm Cassegrain type remotely controlled robotic
telescope with large-format CCD camera, in order to develop
a framework to teach science to High School students through
a multidisciplinary approach. The robotic telescope is installed
in the Eudoxos National Observatory of Education on
the Ainos mountain of Kefallinia Island, Greece. This large
scientific instrument has been developed, with funds from
the Greek Government, by a collaboration of the Institute
of Nuclear Physics at the National Centre for Science Research
‘Demokritos’, the Greek Naval Academy and the Prefecture
of Kefallinia and Ithaki, to be used for educational and
research purposes as a working example for Distance Learning
and Research.

The
'Andrew Michalitsianos' Telescope has been installed since
August 2001 and it is now operational. One is able to remotely
request a specific observation schedule and subsequently receive
the resulting photographs via the Internet, to be used for
teaching purposes or for scientific analysis. In the framework
of the proposed project necessary adjustments and improvements
will be performed on the telescope in order to be optimized
for educational activities. The partnership aims to develop
a web based educational software that will give the opportunity
to students across Europe to control the telescope and perform
observations. In this way the observatory could be operated
via queue-based scheduling. Additionally the partnership plans
to upgrade the observatory with a much smaller component that
will allow the students to observe on-line the sun during
the day.

The
Eudoxos project is partly financed by the European Commission
in the framework of the program "preparatory and innovative
actions - eLearning action plan - DG EAC/25/01". It is
a collaboration of institutions from Austria, Greece, Italy
and Spain. The project began in October 2002 and will be completed
in March 2004.